You pick up your morning paper and read that the body of a young woman was found in a wooded area in your community. The woman was reported to have been beaten and raped before being strangled. The paper reported that as yet the police are unaware of the motive of the killer and how he happened to abduct the victim. Later, from the evening news, you learn that the woman was last seen at a local supermarket. The police located her vehicle near the crime scene and there were signs that she had been locked in the trunk before being raped and murdered. You shake your head and wonder what the world is coming to. How could such a thing happen? How can anyone protect themselves against such random violence?

To the victim and to most average citizens, violent crime is a seemingly random and definitely frightening occurrence. One minute you might be sitting in your car listening to the news or a song on the radio and the next you are staring down the barrel of a gun while someone is screaming at you to hand over your wallet, or your watch, or to get out of the car. You react almost by instinct because you hardly hear exactly what is being said. You hear the word watch, or money, or whatever key word ensures your cooperation and survival. It all happens in a flash but it felt like it took hours. When you finally get hold of your emotions, the thief is gone and so is whatever he demanded in exchange for your life.

All you remember seeing is the gun barrel pointed at you. You dont remember even the color of the shirt the bad guy was wearing although you were looking right at it. You dont know how he got to the side of your car and you are not sure which direction he took when he ran away.

You are probably shaking. You might even vomit. You suddenly see that there were other cars around yours and the other drivers are looking at you with an expression that seems composed of relief, fear, and pity. You take a deep breath put the car in gear and drive home, relieved that you were not killed. A little later you will be angry enough to want to kill someone, but right now you are just confused and shaken.

For most victims, that is as far as the situation goes. Unless someone conducts a post-incident briefing the majority of victims simply want to forget the unpleasant experience. I have talked to numerous victims shortly after a violent incident and then some time later. In the immediate aftermath of the incident the victim usually says something like: I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time; It was just luck of the draw; I guess it was just my turn to be mugged; or something to that effect. However, some time later the victim will probably be able to say: I should have known better; I saw the kid in my rear view mirror; I had a feeling something was going to happen; or something similar.

Why the apparent contradiction?

We will deal with this matter in greater detail when we discuss the physiological response to danger in another chapter. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that at the precise moment of danger your brain becomes highly selective. It concentrates on the immediate threat to your survival to the exclusion of everything else.

When the threat has passed and you have recovered, you will realize that you really saw and remember a lot. Your brain even recorded some of the advance warning signs that you were about to get into danger. At the time you ignored them. I will deal with that aspect of violent crime later too when I consider why people go into denial. The fact is, when I talk to victims well after an incident they almost always remember a great deal about what went before, what happened during, and what ensued after. The mind absorbed it all.

The important thing here is that we eventually remember what went before the incident. When people say I knew something was wrong, or I saw the assailant approaching in my rear view mirror I ask them why they thought something was wrong or that the person was an assailant and not just an ordinary street person. The victim will often remember a particular way of walking, an expression on the face of the assailant, some movement caught in their peripheral vision and registered as unusual.

Those cues were real not imagined. They were not created in the aftermath of the incident to rationalize what happened. You see, violent crime is not a random happening for the criminal. The criminal consciously selected you to be the victim. Something in your demeanor or your posture indicated that you were a better target than someone else. Remember all those other cars around yours? Why didnt the assailant choose one of them instead of you? It was not luck of the draw at least not from the assailants point of view. You were the victim of a rational, perhaps instantaneous but nevertheless rational, assessment of the risk of robbing you rather than of robbing someone else. You were chosen on the basis of some criterion of which you (as yet) have no knowledge. However, the assailant knows exactly what he is looking for.

Think about it for a second. How do you make decisions about important personal or professional matters? Ill bet you use your experience, you weigh the options, you evaluate the alternatives, and then you decide. Your assailant does exactly the same thing. You are a professional executive, salesman, mechanic, etc. Your assailant is a professional thief. The better you are at evaluating your or your companys risk-reward equations, the more successful you or the company will be. The better your assailant is at evaluating his risk-reward equation, the more successful he too will be.